Because it's a pretty generic term, so I guess in circles were precision is desired, DRAM is preferable. You could claim to "store everything in RAM" and still be talking about a conventional disk, for example.

It's probably worth making the distinction here, considering they're claiming "maximum performance", implying fastest possible hardware available, which isn't the case: they'd at least be using SRAM if it were.

I think in this case they're using it to explicitly call out that the RAM being used is volatile. If you first mentioned this theory to someone they'd probably assume you're talking about using NVRAM since it would survive a power failure.

They're probably trying to distinguish it from flash "memory" (which is usually accessed using a storage interface).

> Is "DRAM" the new name for "RAM"? Anybody know why the change in terminology? In which circles is this standard?

RAM has always been DRAM. Specifically putting the "D" was probably meant to differentiate it from other types of Random-Access Memory, like NVRAM.

The "D" just stands for "Dynamic". DRAM & RAM are pretty much interchangeable.